5 Stages Of Grief
by edken
Summary: John Watson goes through each of the five stages post reichenbach: denial/isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Very dark/sad/angry, as you can imagine, though i'm sure most of you won't mind.
1. Denial & Isolation

**A/N: As far as warnings go, this fic gets pretty dark at some points. Lots of angst. Lots of heartbroken John. I'd call it hurt/comfort but there isn't really much comfort... oops. Sadness aside it was inspired by my psychology glass in which we are learning how people deal with grief, which generally goes in five stages. They will be short, but five chapters nonetheless. Enjoy torturing yourselves, my loves **

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Stage 1:

_Denial/Isolation_

For weeks after the fall, all John seemed to do was lie. He lied to everyone, about everything, and usually for no reason in particular. Somehow it made him feel a bit better to be in control of something- at least that was how he justified it. He knew nobody believed him, and he saw the pitying looks. He noticed everybody staring and whispering, even though they didn't think he could hear. He knew damn well none of them believed a word out of his mouth. Sometimes lying is just easier than admitting the truth.

_"No really, I'm fine."_

_"Yes Mrs. Hudson, I'll be okay."_

_"I've got other plans, I can't come out for drinks tonight."_

_"Everything is alright."_

_"I'm getting better."_

Every once in a while John could even convince _himself_ that there wasn't a tombstone with his best friend's name on it half a mile away. It was so much easier to sit around the flat and form reality like it was made of clay. To bend and twist the truth until it no longer hurt to think about. If he sat down in his usual armchair, laptop resting on his knees, sipping a cup of his favorite tea, it didn't seem so impossible that Sherlock might burst through the door at any moment. It didn't seem so impossible that he might be asleep behind the closed door of his bedroom, or perhaps at Bart's with Molly. He could be with Lestrade- in fact, he could be anywhere in London. He could be on the tube back to the flat right now, or sitting in the backseat of a cab. Maybe he was out getting milk for once, although that seemed unlikely.

It was still easier to believe than the truth. What John knew was the truth.

Sherlock was _anywhere_ but dead. _Anywhere_ but in a grave.

And every morning John continued to make two cups of tea. Sherlock never usually drank those anyway, so it wasn't abnormal to see it cold and untouched by midday just where he'd left it. John left the science equipment exactly where it was, not wanting to disturb whatever experiment Sherlock had going. He knew how mad Sherlock could get when his slides and specimens got moved, or "contaminated" as he would put it. John didn't touch Sherlock's sock index, or his unmade bed. He left his skull exactly where it had always been, and he left the opened files from their last case together strewn across the desk _exactly_ where Sherlock had left them.

After a few weeks, he ignored the dust that settled on top of his things, because John knew what that meant.

Mrs. Hudson kept telling John this wouldn't be good for him, going on pretending like he was still there. John knew she was right.

But he also knew if there were no test tubes in the kitchen, no skull on the mantle, no cup of cold tea on the counter, no body parts in the refrigerator, no sock index and no unmade bed waiting for Sherlock when he got back, John was going to start believing he was really dead, and he couldn't admit that. Not yet.

He wasn't ready to admit the greatest man he'd ever known was gone.

No, Sherlock would be back soon to fill his empty chair. He would be back soon to fill the silence.


	2. Anger

Stage 2:

_Anger_

John stared down at a pile of shattered glass littering the kitchen floor. He was distantly aware of the throbbing in his hand from where it had collided with a vase. He knew he'd have to go out and replace the plates and the mugs he'd smashed. All the things that had once touched Sherlock's lips, his hands… every breakable thing he'd ever laid those grey eyes upon was now broken beyond repair, and John stood at the center of the wreckage.

His breathing was heavy. A few rebellious tears had escaped his eyes and left silent trails down his cheeks. His throat burned, his fingernails dug into the palms of his hands as he struggled to keep himself sane. A few tears fell from his chin, dripping down into the debris of glassy dust and shards of colored glass at the man's feet.

His whole body was ridden with shivers as he stared at the expanse of shattered memories in front of him. It was like being back in Afghanistan, looking out across a minefield stretching out for miles. It felt like if he moved a muscle he might explode, and shatter into a million pieces just like everything else. He'd be no different than the vases or the mugs, or that _stupid_ glass kettle. The _ridiculous_ ceramic plates Sherlock had picked out which were so _ugly_ he was glad they were destroyed now. He'd be no less pathetic than that _stupid_, _ugly_ mug Sherlock had gotten him for his birthday last year...

And then suddenly, exploding didn't sound so bad, so he started to walk across the minefield.

Glass bit through his socks and into his feet as he made his way over to the couch, but the pain was distant and muffled and he didn't care. In fact he might as well have lied down on top of it, on top of all those things that were haunted by Sherlock's ghosts, because then maybe he might feel _something_.

Something other than anger. Something other than the burning sensation in his throat. Something other than the desire to shout and yell and hit everything in sight.

"You selfish bastard." John heard someone whisper. Someone a hundred miles away. "Sherlock, you selfish, selfish, bastard. You… you…" It wasn't until the words died in his throat that he realized the voice was his own. He didn't recognize it anymore. Not really.

He buried his head into the pillow on the couch- _their_ couch. The pillow where sherlock had so often rested his head, and suddenly he felt the urge to rip that apart too but he didn't have the strength. Instead he just buried his face deep into it until the material was practically suffocating him, and he pounded his fists into it repeatedly on either side of his head. He punched and he punched it until his arms burned and weakened and his _stupid_, _pathetic_ injured shoulder threatened to burst into flames itself. It hurt so much,_ it all hurt so much._

Eventually his arms came to rest, and he was wracked with sobs that thoroughly embarrassed him because he was sure Sherlock's ghosts were watching. He sobbed and shouted into the pillow for God knows how long about how _selfish_, how _evil_, how _cowardly_ Sherlock Holmes truly was. How he really was a _machine_ and he had a heart of _stone_, and he wondered through the sobs if Sherlock had ever really cared about him at all. He screamed at the ghosts, asking them if they'd ever loved him. He told them to leave and never come back because John hated them. And he hated Sherlock.

He screamed it into the pillow, over and over,_ I hate Sherlock Holmes_.

And then he cried even harder, so hard his lungs threatened to collapse, and his eyes couldn't produce enough tears, because so matter how many times he said all those things John knew they weren't true. He knew they would never be.

And the ghosts, well, of course _they_ knew even better.


End file.
